College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

��-Dearborn earns R2 research designation

lblouin — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 12:34:13 +0000

��-Dearborn earns R2 research designation lblouin Wed, 02/26/2025 - 07:34

By every big metric that Vice Provost for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies Armen Zakarian tracks, ��-Dearborn’s research enterprise is on a tear. The big top line stat: Since 2018, externally funded research expenditures have nearly tripled, increasing from $4.8 million to a projected $13.2 million for FY25. Earlier this month, that growth led to a reclassification of ��-Dearborn as an R2 institution, a designation from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education for universities that award at least 20 research doctorates and have $5 million average annual research spending. It’s the first time the university has received this designation. ��-Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso says the honorific is, without a doubt, an important new feather in the cap for the university. But, for him, the real achievement is all the work that it’s a reflection of. “This recognizes something which we already accomplished — and that is great and I’m very proud of that — but we were going to do it anyway. And honestly, we’re not even satisfied with where we are. There remains enormous untapped potential, so this is really just the start for us,” Grasso says.

So how did we get here? Zakarian and Grasso point to a number of contributing factors. Flash back to 2018 and Zakarian says you’d see an institution where research was “recognized but not prioritized.” The tone changed when Grasso came in and made growing the university’s research and scholarly output one of his top priorities. “In my view, distinguished universities are defined by a faculty comprising scholar-teachers. To my mind, the definition of a professor is someone who is a scholar at the forefront of their field, sharing their passion, knowledge and discoveries with their students,” Grasso says. “Even in the elite small liberal arts schools in New England, where they are known for their focus on educating undergraduate students, the faculty are active scholars.” Zakarian says the administration endorsed that model and supported faculty with larger investments in research development and pre- and post-award support, so researchers could get assistance securing and administering grants.

Aside from the messaging and support from leadership, Zakarian thinks three other things helped set the stage for the explosive research growth the university has seen over the past few years. First, he says faculty consistently cite a shortage of time as their biggest impediment to building their research careers. So some departments decided to lighten the teaching load from three to two courses per semester. The second big factor: the sanctioning of the College of Engineering and Computer Science doctoral programs by U-M’s Rackham Graduate School in 2019. That affiliation meant the programs had to meet the same rigorous standards as doctoral programs on the Ann Arbor campus, which boosted ��-Dearborn’s prestige and ability to recruit top PhD students. This helped faculty recruit valuable talent to power their labs, which further eased their time/labor burden. Finally, Zakarian says when filling faculty vacancies, colleges prioritized hiring ambitious, early-career, research-focused scholars who had the potential to become leaders in their fields.

Then, of course, there’s something to be said for momentum. As some of the above changes started to take root, a few faculty started landing bigger grants, and a larger share of the awards were coming from federal funders, like the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and Department of Defense. “We used to get very few million dollar grants. But it just took a few teams to do that and then we started getting more,” Zakarian says. “You basically reach a point where I think people are looking at what each other are doing, and the mood shifts. Now, we are approaching $85 million in submitted proposals, which I think is just incredible. And the number of proposals hasn’t gone up by a whole lot. That means faculty are more confident going for bigger and bigger grants. Frankly, that’s what it’s going to take. It would be difficult for us to reach the next level, $200,000 at a time.”

Zakarian says the university has also reached a point where the research enterprise has a fairly broad base. “When I think about how sustainable this is, I’m basically looking at whether this is just a handful of people bringing in the big dollar amounts. But it’s much broader than that,” he says. Moreover, while engineering disciplines are responsible for the largest share of the research growth, Zakarian says other disciplines, particularly in the natural sciences, are starting to develop the same momentum. Last year, with engineering in a good spot, the Office of Research made it a priority to assist faculty in the natural sciences. That resulted in several big research grants in biology and chemistry from national funders, including the National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy. Looking ahead, Zakarian and Grasso say the most untapped potential lies in those disciplines, along with computer science, artificial intelligence, and health and human services — the latter of which could also be targeting NIH grants, one of the national funders with the biggest budget.

Grasso notes, however, that realizing that potential now faces some new political hurdles. The Trump administration has pursued several measures that directly disrupt university research, including attempting to severely cut the amount of indirect costs covered by NIH grants, layoffs at the National Science Foundation and pauses by grant review committees. “This is a significant threat,” Grasso says. “I understand the desire to be cost conscious and efficient. But research has been the fuel in the engine that has powered this country, whether you’re talking about revolutionary medications, transistors, AI or practically everything that has changed the world — it all has roots in research — and many of those roots found a home in American soil. To hamper this is incredibly reckless and foolhardy.”

Even within the climate, Zakarian says the R2 designation and what it represents should help keep the momentum going. “Obviously, a lot of this goes back to our ability to recruit and retain top faculty, and I think this designation really does help us communicate that if you are really ambitious and you want to build a strong research program, you can do it here. It says, ‘We’re open for business. We have the resources and the vision. Others have done it, you can do it too.’”

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Story by Lou Blouin

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

College of Engineering and Computer Science

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Wed, 02/26/2025 - 12:33

The recognition follows six years of rapid growth in which externally funded research spending at ��-Dearborn has nearly tripled. So how did we get here? And what’s next?

Associate Professor Dr. Zhi Zhang (not pictured) and Assistant Professor Jie Fan (pictured, middle) recently landed a $465,000 grant from the NIH. Large federal grants helped power ��-Dearborn to an R2 designation in 2025. Photo by Julianne Lindsay

Helping nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy go hi-res

lblouin — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 13:48:43 +0000

Helping nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy go hi-res lblouin Wed, 02/19/2025 - 08:48

Whether you’re talking about MRI, which doctors use to image tissues in the body, or the brand of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy used by organic chemists, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Christos Constantinides says the core idea behind the technique is basically the same. You start with a sample — in organic chemistry, it’s a compound you want to know the structure of, and in an MRI, it’s your body — and you surround it within a powerful magnet. The magnetic field causes the nuclei in the atoms in the sample, which have naturally occurring random spins, to momentarily align these spins with the external field, either in a parallel (lower energy state) or antiparallel orientation (higher energy state). Then, you shoot radio waves at the sample, which causes the spins of the parallel-spinning nuclei to momentarily flip to an antiparallel state. When you turn off the radio waves, these flipped nuclei then “relax,” returning to their original orientation. That releases a small amount of energy as an oscillating magnetic field, which induces an electrical signal. This signal is detected and processed to generate an NMR spectrum in the case of molecular analysis. For MRI, it can be used to create an image of tissues in the body.

Constantinides says NMR is an extremely powerful technique, but it still has some limitations. Notably, certain substances give off very weak signals when they relax out of their “excited” state, which means the spectra generated through NMR often don’t tell you everything you want to know. Scientists have discovered various ways to enhance NMR’s powers. For example, with MRI, contrast dyes can help doctors see more details in the brain, heart, blood vessels, soft tissues and tumors. In materials chemistry, Constantinides says organic chemists use what are called polarizing agents, which are chemical compounds that are added in solution with the sample. Chemically speaking, these compounds are “radicals,” meaning they have at least one unpaired electron (most atoms have electrons which orbit the nucleus in pairs). In an NMR environment, Constantinides says these unpaired electrons are able to influence the nucleus of the molecules in the sample through spin polarization transfer mechanisms, indirectly assisting the “flipping” process that is essential to NMR imaging. “This basically increases the sensitivity of the technique,” he says. “So for molecules that are difficult to get a good NMR spectrum because they give very weak signals, by adding a little bit of this organic radical substance, it basically amplifies the signal and you get more detail.”

Polarizing agents have greatly enhanced NMR spectroscopy, but they aren’t universally effective. For example, Constantinides says today’s most common polarizing agents, known as nitronyl nitroxides, can only be used with certain kinds of substances, because these radicals react with compounds that oxidize easily. With a new $600,000 project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and in conjunction with the Ames National Laboratory, Constantinides is looking to create novel polarizing agents that don’t have these limitations. He says when he describes this project to others, it ends up sounding like a lot of physics, because of the potential applications for NMR and MRI. But the day-to-day work will be a lot of advanced and, at times, unglamorous synthetic organic chemistry. During the three-year project, Constantinides estimates they’ll create 50 to 100 new derivatives of a class of molecules known as Blatter radicals — each of which takes weeks and a carefully planned sequence of chemical reactions to create. “Each compound requires six to 10 different steps,” he says. “One step can take multiple days to set up the chemical reaction, then you have to process it, clean it up a little bit and remove all the inorganic stuff, purify it, and then characterize it to see if you’ve made what you think you’ve made.” To assist with the labor-intensive research, Constantinides is hiring a postdoctoral research fellow and several undergraduates, which will give students an opportunity to get hands-on experience in some very advanced chemistry.

Constantinides in the lab with student research assistants Haidar Dakdouk (middle) and Carter Allen (front). Photo by Annie Barker

Even with this patient, methodical approach, Constantinides says success in organic chemistry is never assured. Over the years, he’s refined multiple techniques for creating certain kinds of molecules. But when you’re making something totally new, he says you never really know which methods will give you the best result — or whether your plan will even work — until you actually try it. “Maybe all of them fail, and then you have to try something totally different. It can be a lot of trial and error,” he says. As each new polarizing agent is created, Constantinides says they’ll first characterize it using the NMR setup at ��-Dearborn. After that, they’ll send the new compounds to the Ames National Laboratory, where they will be mixed in solution with substances that have well-known NMR profiles. By seeing how much of a boost in the signal the nuclei give off, they’ll know which new polarizing agents have the most potential to enhance NMR techniques.

Constantinides says some of his preliminary published research on this topic has shown a lot of potential for Blatter-type radicals, which is why the DOE has funded further work in this area. He says if all goes well, he’s hoping for two big applications: One, it’ll give materials chemists like himself tools for providing detailed characterizations of molecules which have been hard to study using other techniques. The even bigger payoff would be if one of the new molecules they create is suitable for use in MRI, which would give doctors much higher-resolution images of tissues and tumors.

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Story by Lou Blouin

Faculty Research

Research

Technology

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Natural Sciences

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Wed, 02/19/2025 - 13:48

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, used in technologies like MRI, helps scientists see the unseen. New research from Assistant Professor Christos Constantinides could help magnify NMR’s powers even more.

With a new $600,000 project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Assistant Professor Christos Constantinides is hoping to create novel chemical compounds that can enhance nuclear magnetic resonance-based technologies, like MRI. Photo by Annie Barker

A ��-Dearborn love story

stuxbury — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:33:45 +0000

A ��-Dearborn love story stuxbury Wed, 02/12/2025 - 11:33

Most people see the ��-Dearborn parking garage as a space for cars. But newlyweds Kevin and Shelby (Lubienski) Saybolt, 2018 alums, say it's also a pretty nice place to see a sunset.

“It’s hard to see the horizon when you’re in a city. But if you go to the top of the garage, it’s actually a good view — definitely the best place to see the sun set when on campus.” says Kevin, who met Shelby at ��-Dearborn during the Fall 2015 semester. “When Shelby and I got married in September, we wanted to pick a place where you could see the sun set. That’s our thing to do together. It’s been like that since college.”

No, they didn’t choose the top of the university’s parking garage for their big day. Instead, they picked a Michigan ski resort that had a sunset view — nine years after first meeting on ��-Dearborn’s campus.

Shelby, an assistant prosecuting attorney in the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office, and Kevin, an Amazon production planning analyst, are celebrating their first Valentine’s Day together as a married couple. And they give ��-Dearborn the matchmaking credit.

Kevin and Shelby (Lubienski) Saybolt at their December 2018 graduation. Photo courtesy of the Saybolts

“I can honestly say ��-Dearborn changed the trajectory of our entire lives. We found our forever person through those Kroger runs for ice cream before finals, the hikes at the EIC, having fun doing winter sports together and just taking the time to listen to each other,” Kevin says, noting that skiing at Boyne Mountain — the place where they got married — is still on their winter to-do list for the year. “In college, skiing helped bring us together.”

Well, more like esquiar, the Spanish word for it. Kevin and Shelby met in Spanish Professor Jorge Gonzalez del Pozo’s Spanish 201 classroom. When Gonzalez del Pozo quizzed them separately about their interests for a spoken-word exam, he took note of their love of winter activities. As the end-of-the-semester neared, their professor introduced them.

“I was a skier and on the Pine Knob Ski Patrol, so I talked about that with Jorge for the exam. Shelby talked about snowboarding,” Kevin says. “Jorge later brought us together and said, ‘You both really like winter sports and live at the Union, why don’t you consider walking back together — she’ll snowboard, you’ll ski.”

They both took Spanish 202 with Gonzalez del Pozo the following semester but, with different career interests, didn’t have another class together. That didn’t matter. They continued to meet up between classes. Shelby joined the Pine Knob Ski Patrol with Kevin. Kevin spent time caring for animals with Shelby, who loves dogs, at the Friends for Animals of Metro Detroit. And, as “just friends,” they helped each other consider what life would be like post-graduation. They reasoned that a romantic relationship may complicate their plans: Shelby, a psychology major, was considering graduate school; Kevin was pre-med and planned to be a doctor.

During Kevin and Shelby’s last academic year, mutual friend and ��-Dearborn classmate Madison Kuzma encouraged Shelby to speak up. “Madison and I were at a psychology teaching assistant picnic at Professor Roger Loeb’s house. I was telling Madison that whoever ended up with Kevin would be the luckiest girl in the world,” Shelby says. “She encouraged me to tell him how I felt before we graduated. She was right. I wasn’t sure how it would affect our long-term plans, but I needed to say something.”

Kevin and Shelby Saybolt enjoy skiing and are part of the Pine Knob Ski Patrol. Photo courtesy of the Saybolts

Turns out, Kevin felt the same way and they made it official in March 2018 with a Pine Knob ski date at sunset. In December 2018, they graduated and their families met for the first time at the ��-Dearborn Fieldhouse ceremony. “They all hit it off. I have a lot of lawyers in my family and Kevin’s parents are attorneys, so our families just clicked,” Shelby says. “Over the years, we’ve learned that we’ve had so many things in common — including that we went to the same doctor’s office growing up — but it took ��-Dearborn to bring us together.”

Even with best-laid plans, the unexpected can happen. Kevin didn’t get into medical school, so he pivoted to a career in business and earned his MBA from ��-Dearborn in 2021. Shelby, drawing from behavioral health lessons at ��-Dearborn, realized she wanted to help juvenile offenders. She decided to go to law school.

“We helped each other on campus and then, when we found ourselves in the real world, we helped each other through those challenges and grew together,” says Shelby, who graduated from Wayne State University Law School in 2022. “We were worried that a relationship would pull our focus away from our futures. Instead, it’s what pulled us through.” In addition to career growth, they’ve added to their household by adopting two dogs, Muffin and Teddy.

Sharing wedding photos recently, the couple mentioned that Kuzma was in the wedding party and Gonzalez del Pozo was invited, but was unable to attend due to conflicting plans. Shelby says their favorite college memories — like watching the sun set after class — were represented throughout their big day.

“We may not have been on campus for the wedding, but ��-Dearborn played a big part in what our wedding day looked like — most importantly, who we were exchanging our vows with,” Shelby says with a laugh. “Without ��-Dearborn, I don’t know if we would have met each other. I came to ��-Dearborn because of the Michigan degree and smaller class sizes. I knew I’d get a great education, but I didn’t realize that I’d find my soulmate too.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

Off

Wed, 02/12/2025 - 16:32

Shelby and Kevin Saybolt go together just like maize and blue. As they celebrate their first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, the 2018 alums share the role ��-Dearborn had — including a professor who introduced them — in their happily ever after.

Kevin and Shelby Saybolt met at ��-Dearborn in 2015 and married in September 2024. Photo by Karie Anne Photography

Campus Colleagues: Becky Richardson

stuxbury — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 19:36:10 +0000

Campus Colleagues: Becky Richardson stuxbury Tue, 02/04/2025 - 14:36

Becky Richardson’s desk — complete with its encouraging messages — is often one of the first things people notice when walking into the SOAR Program’s office in the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters Building: “All who enter as guests, leave as friends.” “Take the risk or lose the chance.” “Today is the day.”

There’s also the traveling sign that she’s given out to SOAR (Support, Opportunities, Advocacy and Resources for nontraditional undergraduates) students. That one reads, “Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.”

“Our students have been through a lot. Many of our students face personal and financial obstacles, most are raising families and many also care for older adults. That’s a lot of responsibility,” says Richardson, SOAR program assistant. “As silly as it might seem, seeing motivational words helps keep them in your head. I want these signs to remind our students that on tough days, they can get the support they need in the SOAR office — even if that’s just to vent. I have tissues ready for sad tears and happy ones.” With its mission to increase access to post-secondary education for nontraditional adult learners experiencing socioeconomic challenges, SOAR offers up to three semesters of partial tuition support and help with supplies like books and technology, along with other needs.

Richardson recently received the University of Michigan's Distinguished Diversity Leaders Award. A champion for students, Richardson advances a welcoming, supportive environment at ��-Dearborn. She’s an advisor and co-founder for ANTS, the nontraditional student organization; a co-counselor for ��-Dearborn’s chapter of Alpha Sigma Lambda, an honor society for adult learners; a Center for the Education of Women+ Scholar who now serves on their scholarship committee, and a member of the ��-Dearborn Prison Education Working Group.

In this month’s Campus Colleagues, Richardson shares why education advocacy is so important to her and how a little bit of the right support can go a long way.

Find people who will support you with your goals — they are out there.

Richardson says education is an equalizer. It helps grow skills and confidence and changes lives. She knows this from experience.

Richardson and her husband lost their jobs during the recession. Their home and cars soon followed. Then, after years of struggling and moving from place to place with their four children, a Michigan Works caseworker offered some advice. “He suggested going back to school and told me about the SOAR Program at ��-Dearborn. It changed my life,” she says.

It sounds like a nicely wrapped up story. But Richardson says it was a struggle for the seven years — from 2011 to 2018 — she took to earn her bachelor degree in behavioral sciences and women’s and gender studies. She says the SOAR office, and SOAR Director Ellen Judge-Gonzalez in particular, helped her see things that she didn’t see in herself.

“I originally wanted to get a degree where I didn’t have to interact with people. I wanted to work in a medical lab. My previous jobs were doing collections and working at a funeral home. As much as I tried to be positive, I was meeting people at their worst times and it wore me down,” Richardson says. “When I was a student, Ellen kept encouraging me to join student groups and work at the registration desk for events. She saw a natural ability in me when it comes to working with people. She later hired me as a student employee for SOAR and that turned into the fulltime position that I have today. Helping people transform their lives is hard, but rewarding. It’s exactly where I need to be.” Richardson has worked in the SOAR office for a decade.

The office itself is also a refuge because it’s a place where SOAR students share their stories of tribulations and triumph. Richardson says hearing how people overcome challenges is motivating. “You want to find people who help you feel less alone on your journey,” she says. “They will help you keep moving forward even on the hardest days.”

Richardson says she never expected to find a college initiative like the SOAR Program. But going through state social services programs and following up on advice shared with her changed the trajectory of her life. “It might not feel like it right now, but there are people who want to support you,” she says. “Don’t give up. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. And be ready to give it your all when a door opens.”

For adult learners considering a return to school to earn their first bachelor’s degree, check out the SOAR Program.

SOAR Program Assistant Becky Richardson, holding award, is pictured at the Jan. 28 awards ceremony in Ann Arbor with, from left, Disability and Accessibility Services Coordinator Judy Walker, SOAR Director Ellen Judge-Gonzalez, ��-Ann Arbor Executive Assistant to the President Brenda Rutkey, who is Richardson's sister, and Sociology Professor Francine Banner. Photo by Michigan Photography

After reaching goals, look for ways to pay it forward.

With her kids and husband — as well as many ��-Dearborn colleagues and professors — cheering her on at the ��-Dearborn Fieldhouse, Richardson says she will never forget her December 2018 graduation day. “When I walked across the stage, I could hear people yelling my name,” she says. “It was surreal to actually experience something that had only lived in my mind for so long.”

She says many of the same people also nominated her for the U-M award. Nominators were Judge-Gonzalez, Sociology Professor Francine Banner, Criminology and Criminal Justice Lecturer Aaron Kinzel, CASL Advising and Academic Success Administrative Assistant Maureen Sytsma and Disability and Accessibility Services Coordinator Judy Walker.

“This award is something I didn’t see coming. I almost didn’t believe it was real when I first got the email. The subject line said, ‘Congratulations’ and it came in at 4:26 p.m. in the afternoon right before the holiday break began. After all of the spam email warnings we’ve gotten, I thought maybe it was one of those,” Richardson says with a laugh. “But it was very real. It’s amazing to be at a place where the people continue to lift you up.”

Richardson works to express her gratitude through service to others. When SOAR students tell her they are behind on rent or their utilities are shut off, she connects them to financial support opportunities or organizations. If courses are a challenge, she lets them know about academic support services on campus. And there’s her open-door policy for her students. “Sometimes all we want is to know someone cares,” she says. “It’s important to remember where you come from and to be that person you once wished was there for you. I can’t say I’m perfect, but I try.”

Richardson is also an education advocate for citizens reentering society after prison. She served as a teaching assistant for a ��-Dearborn program at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility and has seen the successes of some of her formerly incarcerated SOAR students like ��-Dearborn graduate Penny Kane.

“It’s as simple as, treat people how you want to be treated. What shocked me the most when I first worked in the prisons is how the women are trained to see themselves. When I asked their names to sign in, the women started listing off numbers. I kept saying, ‘No, I want to know your name and how to address you.’ Over time, they used their names instead of numbers — it changed the whole dynamic in such a positive way,” she says. “The returning citizens population is one group I am passionate about helping. I know people who have done their time and have difficulty getting jobs or an education because they were once in prison. Why are we still penalizing them beyond their sentence?”

In the SOAR office on an early Wednesday morning, Richardson makes coffee and heats water for tea — she wants it ready for the students who drop in to use SOAR computers or just want to talk. She organizes a virtual meet-up for her remote students. And she seeks out scholarship opportunities to help a student in need.

“I’m here today — with my college degree and a job I love — because of all the people who supported me. I want to be that person for someone else,” she says. “I’m here to pay it forward.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

Awards

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Inclusion or Diversity

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Tue, 02/04/2025 - 19:35

SOAR Program Assistant Becky Richardson recently received a U-M award for leaders creating a welcoming and supportive working environment. Richardson’s advice? ‘Treat people how you want to be treated.’

SOAR Program Assistant Becky Richardson works to create a welcoming space for students. Photo by Sarah Tuxbury

The Flamingo: A Screening of Adam Sekuler's Film

ambriggs — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:45:10 +0000

The Flamingo: A Screening of Adam Sekuler's Film ambriggs Mon, 02/03/2025 - 10:45

Please join us in CASL for a screening of Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Production, Adam Sekuler's film, "The Flamingo". This milestone is the result of a five-year journey for Sekuler, which not only highlights the creative and academic work being done in the Journalism and Media Production program but also underscores the broader impact of the arts in fostering critical conversations. A conversation to follow, moderated by Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies from the �� School of Social Work, Shanna K. Kattari, PhD, MEd, CSE.

Monday, February 17th, 4 p.m. - in 1045 CASL Building

About: In her 60s, Mary Phillips embarks on a journey of self-discovery, exploring new forms of connection, intimacy, and personal empowerment. After 13 years of solitude, she reclaims her sense of self through deep personal reflection, open-road adventures, and meaningful relationships.

Shot in a compassionate and intimate, observational style, The Flamingo offers a fresh perspective on aging, reinvention, and the pursuit of fulfillment. Through Mary’s story, the film challenges conventional views on desire and personal freedom, inviting viewers to consider new ways of embracing life’s possibilities at any age.

*Mature Content

2025-02-17T16:00:00-0500 to 2025-02-17T18:00:00-0500

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters Building

CASL Building

4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
United States

https://goo.gl/maps/NJDERJjscn8n6jqm6

1045

United States

On Campus

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Yunus Zeytuncu

zeytuncu@umich.edu

Everyone

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Arts

How can we support young people with cancer?

stuxbury — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:48:34 +0000

How can we support young people with cancer? stuxbury Wed, 01/29/2025 - 11:48

Young people are often asked about college plans, careers and relationships. But what happens when a teen or young adult is in a situation where they need to focus on one day at a time?

Associate Professor of Health Communication Nick Iannarino — who’s researched health communication challenges for young adults with cancer diagnoses for 15 years — went right to the source and asked teens and 20-somethings about the support they need and the advice they’d give to peers.

“This is an important area of research because there is an overall lack of understanding about what quality of life means for a young adult and what their needs are,” Iannarino said. ““This population isn’t largely being addressed when it comes to their needs following a cancer diagnosis. Depending on where people fall in age range, they are typically grouped into older-aged individuals or pediatric. But adolescents and young adults are in a very different stage of life than these other groups.”

Iannarino — along with a team of researchers from Michigan Medicine’s Rogel Cancer Care Center, Mott Children’s Hospital and ��-Ann Arbor — conducted a study in which they talked with 27 Rogel and Mott patients, ages 12 to 25. The young people had diagnoses including ovarian cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, osteosarcoma and testicular cancer. Their findings were recently published in a Journal of Communication in Healthcare article.

Through open, honest conversations, Iannarino says the study participants highlighted the need for similar-age cancer support groups and advocacy opportunities, as well as having trusted doctors, family and friends.

Advice from participants included:

Take it one day at a time. “Sometimes you have to accept that you don’t have full control over every day of your life or every move that you make. If you could just try to live optimistically and happily each day and find something in each day that makes you happy, that’s what you need to do because tomorrow is not guaranteed.”
Reframe the situation. “Stay strong and keep your head up. No matter how much hair you lose, you’ll always grow it back.”
Trust the medical team. “You just gotta trust the plan. I mean, you gotta have trust in the doctors and . . . that everything’s gonna work out.”
Ask for support. “Don’t feel like you’re really making it hard on people when you ask for help. Even for little things. ’Cause, for me, I feel bad when I’m like, ‘Hey, Mom. Could I get some water? I don’t really feel like walking downstairs.’ She’s like, ‘For sure.’ At the start of it, I was like, ‘I really feel bad for doing this,’ but she tells me every day, ‘If you need to wake me up, just wake me up.’ Just hearing that makes me feel like more people should know that people are out to help you.”
Think about a fertility backup plan before beginning chemotherapy. “For a lot of people, it’s not something that they’ve really thought about when they’re 21, 22 . . . if you have the resources, always freeze your eggs because you don’t know what you’ll want to do five, 10, 15 years from now.”
Advocate for yourself. “(Doctors are) super-nice people. Ask ’em questions. But sometimes they’re not as good at handling the emotional side of things as someone else could be. If you want to talk to a therapist, you can tell your oncologist that and they’ll help point you in the right direction or they’ll bring in the person that you want to talk to for you because they’re full of resources and you can utilize all of them.There’s always gonna be someone there for you, even if you feel alone and you don’t have family support. Your doctors will help you find the person you need to talk to.”

Family support is also crucial, but sometimes family and friends don’t know how to best provide it, Iannarino said. Even as an expert, he’s struggled with this. “It’s human nature to not know if your actions are too much or not enough,” he said. “But it’s better to do your best and be present than it is to stop showing up because you aren’t sure what to do.” The nonprofit organization, b-present, where Iannarino serves on the board, is a comprehensive resource for families. They offer a support roadmap for each stage of the cancer journey.

Iannarino has friends who have fought cancer. One of his best friends since high school was diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 23. “I saw how it really affected his relationships and his identity. He didn’t want to rely on anyone else and didn’t want to ask for help, even though he needed to,” said Iannarino. “It made me very aware of the barriers young people have when speaking up.” His friend is doing well and is now married with a family, he added.

Iannarino said this advice-focused research work is one part of a larger study the group conducted surrounding cancer and developing adolescent and young adult identities.

Iannarino continues to explore doctor-patient cancer communication with adolescents and young adults, along with the ways health systems can best provide families with support and information, even when cancer centers have limited resources. “Asking adolescents and young adults the question, ‘What advice do you have for another person who is going through this situation?’ opens a door for communication that can build trust and lead to clinicians and patients talking more openly about needs,” he said. “And when those needs are identified, patients and their families can be better connected to the right resources.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

Faculty Research

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Off

Wed, 01/29/2025 - 16:47

Health Communication Associate Professor Nick Iannarino’s research looks at creating advocacy and support avenues for teens and young adults with a cancer diagnosis.

Health Communication Associate Professor Nick Iannarino has researched communication around cancer diagnoses and young adults for more than 15 years. Photo by Annie Barker

CASL Internship Fair

ebarbier — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 19:51:57 +0000

CASL Internship Fair ebarbier Mon, 01/27/2025 - 14:51

February 27, 12-1 p.m. in 1030 CASL Building

Welcome spring by learning about internship opportunities for summer and fall!

Hear an alum talk about her current position for the City of Dearborn and how her internship helped her prepare for this role.

You can also hear faculty give advice and discuss academic credit for internships!

2025-02-27T12:00:00-0500 to 2025-02-27T13:00:00-0500

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters Building

CASL Building

4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
United States

https://goo.gl/maps/NJDERJjscn8n6jqm6

1030

United States

On Campus

CASL Internship Office

Liz Clark

ebarbier@umich.edu

Current Students

Undergraduate students

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Fair / Festival

Info Session

‘How will you make your mark on the world?’

stuxbury — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 19:14:43 +0000

‘How will you make your mark on the world?’ stuxbury Sat, 12/21/2024 - 14:14

Nearly 40 years after Henry Maier earned his diploma from ��-Dearborn, he attended his first campus commencement. The retired FedEx ground president and CEO skipped his own ceremony because he moved immediately after finals to begin working. On Dec. 21, he was back at his alma mater — this time delivering the keynote speech to the Class of Fall 2024.

Keynote speaker Henry Maier

“Thanks for the opportunity to finally attend — even if it is almost 50 years late,” said Maier, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1986. “I entered ��-Dearborn as a freshman in the fall of 1972, only the second class of freshmen admitted to the university. My family couldn’t afford college, so I had to work one, two and once three jobs to pay tuition. I’m sure many of you sitting here can relate.” Maier went on to have a 35-year career with FedEx. “��-Dearborn made it possible for students like me to get not just a college education, but a Michigan education,” he continued.

Surrounded by family, friends and favorite professors, hundreds of Dearborn Wolverines were awarded 713 degrees during two 90-minute commencement ceremonies in the Fieldhouse. The morning ceremony recognized graduates of the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters and the College of Business. The afternoon ceremony celebrated graduates of the College of Education, Health and Human Services and the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Delivering the keynote, Maier congratulated the graduates on reaching their goals. He said their hard work will continue to open doors for more opportunities. “Today you reached a milestone, but what you really have done is given yourself choices. You can choose to earn a living, what problems you want to help solve and decide what direction you want your life to go in,” he said.

Maier added that, as life unfolds, the knowledge the graduates have gained will prove important — but so will the understanding that there will always be lessons to learn and skills to grow. “If you take nothing else with you today, be curious, inquisitive and remember that your education does not end when you leave today,” he said.

Student speaker Almunthir Elhady echoed the idea that graduation is not a conclusion. The College of Engineering and Computer Science graduate told his fellow students that with each step they take, they will be called to adapt, to grow and to rise. “The future is not a destination — it is a process of becoming, a journey of constant redefinition, of striving not just for personal success, but for a world that is better for those who will follow,” Elhady said.

Student speaker Almunthir Elhady

As Chancellor Domenico Grasso certified the degrees, he told the students that he looks forward to seeing the good that they bring into the world. “I welcome you to the society of learned men and women and to the pantheon of distinguished Michigan alumni — almost 700,000 strong — who have shaped and defined the world in which we live,” Grasso said. “Today also marks the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight, but from here on, the days will gradually grow longer. Just as the light of the sun increases, so too will the light of your education — symbolized by our university seal — guide you, illuminating your futures for the rest of your lives.”

Then, students in the Class of Fall 2024 — who ranged from ages 18 to 65 and hailed from 14 U.S. states and many nations around the world — turned their tassels, marking their official transition to alumni. During the two ceremonies, 482 undergraduate, 226 graduate and five doctoral degrees were awarded.

Grasso also awarded one special diploma — to Maier. “We are going to present him with the diploma that he did not receive during his commencement,” Grasso said. “Congratulations.” Smiling, Maier accepted it with one word: “Finally.”

Chancellor Domenico Grasso and Class of Fall 2024 keynote speaker Henry Maier

During his keynote speech, Maier noted that the anthem for his generation — the Baby Boomers — was a Graham Nash song titled “Chicago.” He paraphrased the lyrics: “We can change the world. Rearrange the world. It’s dying to get better.” He encouraged the newest ��-Dearborn alums to think about their song, while also talking about what a big day it was for them both — even though their graduations were nearly 40 years apart.

“To the Class of 2024, I ask, ‘What’s your anthem? How will you leave your mark on the world?” Maier said. “What I can tell you is you have already begun.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury. Photos by Annie Barker and Andrew Mascharka

Commencement

Alumni Engagement

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

College of Education, Health, and Human Services

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Off

Sat, 12/21/2024 - 18:57

��-Dearborn awarded 713 degrees during two 90-minute commencement ceremonies on Dec. 21 in the Fieldhouse.

The Class of Fall 2024 was celebrated at two commencement ceremonies on Dec. 21. Photo by Annie Barker

Faculty Fulbrights bring international partnerships to Dearborn Wolverines

stuxbury — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 16:55:56 +0000

Faculty Fulbrights bring international partnerships to Dearborn Wolverines stuxbury Mon, 12/16/2024 - 11:55

Three ��-Dearborn faculty from three different colleges were awarded grants to teach or conduct research in three different areas of the world — Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia — through the Fulbright awards program.

The U.S. Fulbright Scholar exchange program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, awarded grants to ��-Dearborn faculty. Composition and Rhetoric Teaching Professor Kristian Stewart received an award for the 2023-24 cycle. Business Economics and Finance Lecturer Mercedes Miranda and Computer and Information Science Associate Professor Birhanu Eshete earned grants for the 2024-25 cycle.

“A Fulbright Award is a way we can bring other parts of the world back to our students,” says Stewart, who did her most recent Fulbright in Indonesia over the summer. “We have diversity on our campus. There are times when I have students with five different first languages in my classroom. But we can still get isolated in our own groups, in our own enclaves. So it’s important to connect our students with people in different areas of the world that they may be unfamiliar with. And it’s important for them to learn how to tell — and listen — to the stories of others. Fulbright awards open doors to connect our students to people in different areas of the world.”

Reporter spoke with Stewart and Miranda about their recent awards. Eshete, who is currently in Ethiopia, will be highlighted in a future story.

Mercedes Miranda, Egypt

Miranda says an exchange opportunity changed her life when she was a college undergraduate. As a part of a pilot program at her university in her home country of Ecuador, Miranda — an economics student — was chosen to join a cohort that would study at the University of New Orleans in the United States.

“That opened a world of opportunities for me to create new networks to climb the career ladder and to experience a different culture,” says Miranda, who notes that, as cultural immersion, she watched “Saturday Night Live” until she was able to pick up the references and laugh at the jokes. “Many of our students at ��-Dearborn may be of Arabic descent, but they are born here and do not have the financial means to travel outside of the U.S. I see this Fulbright as a way to help me better understand life in a MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) country, while also creating ways to help my ��-Dearborn students connect with people across the world.”

Starting in February, Miranda will be teaching four-month business economics courses in Egypt, contributing her expertise to global academic exchanges and fostering international collaboration. Miranda has previously done non-Fulbright teaching in China for MBA students and in Italy for undergraduates.

Miranda’s Fulbright university will be in Cairo, but the name of the institution will not be shared with her until 10 days prior to the beginning of the Fulbright due to their protocol. She will teach both undergraduate and graduate courses that have an interdisciplinary, hands-on approach and merge concepts from finance, business economics and international business.

“I am going to teach through using business case studies through the Egyptian economic perspective, while also having the students reach out to Egyptian businesses to create a collaborative project that will help the businesses and give students the applicable knowledge they need,” she says. “I do something similar at ��-Dearborn, except from an American perspective and we work with Dearborn- and Detroit-based small businesses.”

Miranda enjoys seeing other areas of the world, but this will be the first time she’s traveled to Egypt. She chose to apply to the country specifically because it was the largest country in the MENA region with an institution where she could apply her international business economics expertise and 20% of the population are in the age range of 15 to 24.

“Many of our students are fluent in Arabic and I wanted an Arabic-speaking country that had a younger demographic. I see my Fulbright as the first step to a partnership of some type. Maybe it’s a project or a class. Maybe it’s having ��-Dearborn students go there or for Egyptian students to study here,” says Miranda, who notes COB Dean Frédéric Brunel will visit Egypt while she is there to meet faculty and university officials. “No matter what it will look like, I do know that this is only the beginning of something very wonderful.”

Kristian Stewart, Indonesia

When Stewart returned from Greece in fall 2023, after her first Fulbright Scholar Award, Stewart looked for additional international collaboration opportunities through Fulbright. She found a Fulbright Specialist opportunity to create a Center for Academic Writing at the Universitas Negeri Medan in Medan, Indonesia, in the summer 2024.

In addition to developing a Centre for Academic Writing on the Medan campus, running workshops and giving talks, Stewart provides one-on-one instruction and critiques for faculty academic papers. “After the six weeks, I left them the curriculum that I developed as a foundation for their Centre for Academic Writing,” she says. “To continue our relationship, I'm still working with their faculty. On Tuesday mornings our time, I'm theirs for the morning. They can put questions or their scholarly work in WhatsApp or a Google drive and I can edit and give feedback.”

Before Stewart left Indonesia, she and university employees discussed how they would like to come to ��-Dearborn and co-teach with her or how they can bring ��-Dearborn students there.

“The Fulbright Specialist award might be for a relatively short period of time, but the effects of the work being done through the program will be long lasting for me, their faculty and our students,” Stewart says.

Working with the University of Peloponnese in Greece during her first Fulbright Award, Stewart tailored her ��-Dearborn digital storytelling course to fit the needs of the Greek school’s curriculum, available technologies and student population. One such example project comes from Stewart’s ��-Dearborn course, “Being Human Today.” Stewart’s Dearborn Wolverines collaborate with students from universities around the world to create short videos that present life through individual lenses. “You combat stereotypes by having experiences outside of your own. You find solutions to world issues by learning from other people and seeing how they solve problems. Exposure is key,” says Stewart, who has previously taught in multiple countries, including South Africa, China, Germany and Italy.

A highlight of her first Fulbright Award was an invitation to provide a plenary address at Jefferson House, the residence of the United States Ambassador to Greece, where she was proud to provide remarks and represent ��-Dearborn to an international audience that included United States Ambassador to Greece, George J. Tsunis.

Stewart says as a result of her Fulbrights, her goals are to foster additional international connections and projects to benefit ��-Dearborn students. And it’s working.

��-Dearborn and the University of the Peloponnese recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Students and faculty from the two schools plan to work together for the next five years on writing-related research endeavors, including students virtually working together and sharing stories.

Stewart has additionally established a Collaborative Online International Learning partnership with biotechnology students in South Africa, and they just finished an eight-week project. Together, in WhatsApp groups, students investigated one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals students then co-authored StoryMaps reflective of their research. Stewart also plans to connect Dearborn students to the Indonesian students, stemming from her work in Medan, in the near future.

Story by Sarah Tuxbury

Faculty and Staff

University-wide

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

College of Business

Accounting and Finance

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Computer and Information Science

Off

Mon, 12/16/2024 - 16:55

Three faculty members from three ��-Dearborn colleges — COB, CECS and CASL — earned awards to work in Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia.

��-Dearborn faculty members, from left, Mercedes Miranda, Kristian Stewart and Birhanu Eshete

Is pH the GPS of our cells?

lblouin — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:35:53 +0000

Is pH the GPS of our cells? lblouin Wed, 12/04/2024 - 09:35

Acids, which, technically speaking, are molecules that give off positively charged hydrogen ions when dissolved in water, play a role in some of the most important functions in our bodies. Your stomach contains something very close to hydrochloric acid — a highly acidic substance that helps your body dissolve food and nearly bottoms out the pH scale, scientists’ measure of acidity. Amino acids and fatty acids are, respectively, the building blocks of proteins and lipids, two of your body’s most essential complex molecules. The A in DNA? That stands for acid. But even with all that acids do for us, Associate Professor of Biology Kalyan Kondapalli thinks we may still be underestimating their power. With a new National Institutes of Health-funded project, he’s investigating whether pH may be functioning like a cellular GPS, helping our cells route important cargo within their borders to perform functions that are fundamental to our health.

Kondapalli’s latest work focuses on immune cells called macrophages, which he says are sort of the paramedics of the immune system. When a bacteria or virus enters your body, the macrophage is often the first to arrive. It engulfs the invader, enveloping the bacteria or virus inside the borders of its cell membrane, where it is packaged into a transport vesicle called a phagosome. This transport vesicle then begins a journey away from the outer edge of the cell toward the interior of the cell, where it eventually merges with a lysosome — an acidic organelle that dissolves the bacteria or virus into its component parts. After this process is complete, the bits and pieces are attached to the outside of the macrophage's membrane. Here, more specialized immune cells interpret these components of the virus or bacteria and start the process of manufacturing antibodies — kicking off a counterattack by the immune system that’s tailored to the specific disease.

This process is a classic showcase of the body’s use of acids to break things down. But Kondapalli says that when you start looking at the finer details of the phagosome’s journey within the cell, it’s not the only role that acids appear to be playing. One of the most peculiar things is that as the phagosome begins its journey of ferrying the bacteria or virus from the cell membrane to the interior part of the cell, the environment inside the phagosome gradually gets more acidic. What’s especially weird, Kondapalli says, is that the change in acidity doesn’t appear to be strictly associated with breaking things down. So what exactly is going on?

Kondapalli had encountered similar phenomena when he was doing his postdoc work at Johns Hopkins, where he studied a type of specialized protein that are found on endosomes — the class of subcellular transport vesicles of which phagosomes are one type. He says the proteins function sort of like a fine-tuning knob for controlling the pH within endosomes by constantly allowing more or less acid to leave the vesicle. Changes in how this protein behaves, or having too much or too little of the protein, is consequential across an array of organisms. In some plants, for example, fiddling with this knob, and hence fiddling with the acidity of the transport vesicles, can change the color of flowers. One of Kondapalli’s studies found that some people with autism didn’t have enough of these knobs, which meant that a transport vesicle responsible for disposing of excess neurotransmitters was failing to do so, leaving the brain flooded with chemicals. A significant number of people with glioblastoma, one of the most lethal forms of brain cancer, appeared to have too much of this knob. “With this cancer, one of the proteins that is supposed to be transported to the lysosome to be degraded instead gets delivered to the surface of the cell. And that cargo is a receptor that signals the cell to grow and divide. That can be a big factor in developing cancer,” Kondapalli says.

Kondapalli knew that this knob was associated with the regulation of pH within endosomes. And he also knew that irregularities with this knob often meant transport vesicles were struggling to deliver their cargo to the proper places. So he began formulating a bold hypothesis: What if pH was somehow regulating the directional movement of the transport vesicles? What if acid was functioning not just as a fundamental building block of something else or something that dissolves other things, but as a sort of GPS within the cell?

To test his hypothesis, Kondapalli first formulated a way to fiddle with the knob so he could manipulate the acidity of the endosomes and see what happened to their behavior under different conditions. Using a genetically engineered virus that triggered the endosomes to make more or less of these proteins, he could make the environment inside the endosome either more acidic or more alkaline. But then he needed some way to precisely measure how this influenced the endosomes’ directional movement. Assistant Professor of Physics Suvranta Tripathy, who specializes in experimental biophysics, still remembers Kondapalli’s very specific line of questioning on the day Tripathy was interviewing for his position at ��-Dearborn in 2020. “I was doing my presentation on my research, and I remember Kalyan said, basically, ‘Do you think you can solve this problem?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I think we can definitely do that,’” Tripathy recalls. “Then, of course, after formally joining ��-Dearborn, I sent him an email reminding him that he asked me this question and that’s how we started working on it.”

Kondapalli (second from left) and Tripathy (far left) have been collaborating on their phagosome transport research since 2020. Photo by Annie Barker

Tripathy, it turned out, was also very interested in how phagosomes move through the cell. He was particularly focused on two types of proteins located on the outside of the phagosome that function like motors, propelling the phagosome either toward or away from the center of the cell, depending on which type of motor protein was more abundant. He had been studying exactly how these motor proteins know where to go, and he found Kondapalli’s hypothesis that pH was potentially driving their directional movement to be surprising and exciting. On their first project, Tripathy used a 2018 Nobel-prize-winning technique called optical tweezers to track the movement of phagosomes within the macrophage, while Kondapalli manipulated the phagosomes’ pH using his genetic engineering process. To do this, Tripathy attached a tiny plastic bead to a bacteria, which was then engulfed by the macrophage and packaged, along with the bead, inside a phagosome. Using a tightly focused laser, Tripathy was then able to measure the mechanical parameters related to the movement of the bead inside the phagosome under different pH conditions as it traveled throughout the cell. The results confirmed Kondapalli’s general hypothesis. If the maturing phagosome never got acidic enough, it wouldn’t reach its intended meet-up point with the lysosome, the invader would not be dissolved and the rest of the immune system would never be alerted. pH, it seemed, was indeed linked to the directional movement of phagosome transport — and, fundamentally, to our health.

The results were exciting, but Kondapalli and Tripathy say they’re hoping their new NIH-funded project will reveal many more details of how exactly pH is regulating phagosome transport. Their general working hypothesis is that changes in acidity inside the phagosome drive changes in the kind of lipids that make up the phagosome’s membrane. These lipids then “recruit” corresponding motor proteins, which, again, come in two varieties — one that drives movement away from the center of the cell and one that drives movement toward it. So, stitching it all together: An increasingly acidic environment inside the phagosome means the phagosome’s membrane will contain more of a kind of lipid that attracts motor proteins that move the phagosome to the center of the cell. A more alkaline phagosome creates a cell membrane full of different kinds of lipids, which attract the other kind of motor protein and propel it in the other direction. And Tripathy says the process may be more complicated than that. For example, it appears that motor proteins may require a binding protein to attach to the lipid, and that binding protein can be pH-sensitive.

Kondapalli says if they can more thoroughly document this connection between pH and directional movement in phagosomes, it could have a variety of implications. On the practical side, it could provide a path to new types of therapeutics. He says the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and Legionnaires' disease, for example, have defenses that specifically disrupt the phagosome’s acidification process in an effort to keep from being destroyed. So if scientists could discover chemical pharmaceuticals that do what Kondapalli currently does with genetic engineering, we could also control acidity — countering the effects of the bacteria’s defenses and steering phagosomes to their proper destinations.

Bigger picture: Establishing this new role for pH would be a pretty big-deal revelation in the world of cell biology, given that acidity is generally thought to only perform certain kinds of functions in the body. Moreover, what would make this finding so interesting is macrophages aren’t the only type of cells that have transport systems. Many types of cells depend on similar endosomes to ferry cargo, so it’s entirely possible that pH is functioning as a GPS all over the body, though that would take more research to fully establish. Indeed, Kondapalli thinks there may still be other roles for pH that scientists have yet to explore. “If you think of the different organelles in the cell as rooms within the house, what’s really fascinating is that each room has a unique pH,” he explains. “You take mitochondria, where the cell’s energy is made, the pH is slightly alkaline. The lysosome is acidic, around 4.5 or 5. The nucleus is neutral, it’s around 7. The cytosol, the media in the cell, is also close to neutral. Why is this? We still don’t have the answer. So we may really just be scratching the surface with this new work. Acidification may be doing a lot more in the body than we ever thought.”

###

Story by Lou Blouin

Faculty and Staff

Faculty Research

Research

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

Natural Sciences

Off

Wed, 12/04/2024 - 14:35

Scientists used to think acids in our bodies were mostly for building things up or breaking things down. But new research from ��-Dearborn faculty Kalyan Kondapalli and Suvranta Tripathy is pointing to a new fundamental role for pH in our cells.

Associate Professor of Biology Kalyan Kondapalli (far right) and Assistant Professor of Physics Suvranta Tripathy (far left) in the lab with undergraduate researcher Mariam Duhaini (second from left) and graduate student Lanqin Cao. Photo by Annie Barker

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

������-Dearborn earns R2 research designation

Helping nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy go hi-res

A ������-Dearborn love story

Campus Colleagues: Becky Richardson

Find people who will support you with your goals — they are out there.

After reaching goals, look for ways to pay it forward.

The Flamingo: A Screening of Adam Sekuler's Film

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters Building

How can we support young people with cancer?

CASL Internship Fair

College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters Building

‘How will you make your mark on the world?’

Faculty Fulbrights bring international partnerships to Dearborn Wolverines

Mercedes Miranda, Egypt

Kristian Stewart, Indonesia

Is pH the GPS of our cells?

��-Dearborn earns R2 research designation

A ��-Dearborn love story